The First Time Tennessee Beat Alabama in Football

 

The 1904 University of Tennessee football team

Tennessee Vs. Alabama

My wife calls it the Charlie Brown Rivalry. And Tennessee football is Charlie Brown.

That means Alabama football is Lucy, always pulling the football away at the last minute, just when Charlie Brown thinks, at last, he is going to kick the ball.

At least it’s been that way for the last fifteen years.

Everyone knows the last time Tennessee beat Alabama in football was 15 years ago.

But do you know the first time Tennessee beat Alabama? And do you know how they did it? It was on an amazing play.

Pull up a chair and let me tell you about that first Tennessee victory over Alabama.

It was 1904. Football was a very different game. Helmets, when used, were more like aviator caps. Shoulder pads were minimal. Even the scoring was different.

I’ve already told you the outcome: Tennessee won. The score was 5-0. But it wasn’t a field goal and a safety. In 1904 a touchdown was worth five points.

The amazing part is how Tennessee scored. It wasn’t even a regular who scored the winning touchdown. It was the substitute fullback (Tennessee only took two substitutes to the game in Birmingham.)

The unlikely hero was Sam McAlister, a wiry 150-pound player whom the Birmingham News called the “Human Grasshopper.”

The winning – and only – touchdown was scored in what would today be against the rules.

 So what was the amazing play that resulted in McAlister’s day in the sunshine?

He would take a handoff from quarterback T.R. Watkins and run toward the line, planting his foot on the back of a lineman and leaping in the air at the last minute. And then the halfbacks, the Caldwell brothers, would grab handles sewn onto his specially-designed wide leather belt, and literally toss him over the line.

It was called “hurdling” and the Knoxville Sentinel described it this way:

“The hurdling manipulation is one of the most difficult as well as the most dangerous plays in football ethics. On account of that fact, it is seldom used by players. It means simply that the one who hurdles permits his companions to pitch him as far into the air and over as great a distance as possible. The University of Tennessee on account of the danger had not made the play this season.”

McAllister was a reluctant participant. The Sentinel noted he was “a good runner, but not much on defensive work. On account of that fact, he refused to play in many of the games.”

It was team captain Roscoe Word who talked him into the “hurdling maneuver.”

Record of UT football team in 1904

(from the 1905 yearbook)

Tennessee had won only one game that season. The Sentinel wrote, “The boys were desperate. No headway was being made against Alabama. ‘We must do something,’ said Word. ‘McAlister we've got to hurdle you toward the goal.’ McAlister, although he knew the danger, readily agreed, according to Captain Word who told how the work was done.

“The boys got in line to play. The center pushed back the ball to the quarterback, who seized it and gave it to McAlister. McAlister took the ball and ran to the left end of the line, followed by the halfback. When the line was reached, they seized him by the belt and pitched him for a half dozen feet over the two lines. This they did time and again, and won the game.”

The first time UT beat Alabama it was by throwing the fullback over the line!

 

Tennessee was not supposed to win the 1904 contest. In their 1903 meeting Alabama had won handily 24-0. The Knoxville Sentinel reported on Tuesday before the Thanksgiving Day game that Tennessee was a decided underdog:

“Birmingham newspapers predict that the University of Alabama will win out by two touchdowns and possibly by three. The predictions are based on games played by each team with the Nashville University. The score of the game played on local ground between the local school and Nashville resulted in a tie, neither side having scored. The University of Alabama defeated Nashville University by a score of 17 to 0.”

(The University of Nashville was chartered by the state in 1826. It closed in 1909.)

And even after the win the Alabama sportswriters grudgingly noted that Tennessee’s victory was “due entirely” to an injury suffered in the first half by Alabama’s star halfback Auxford Burks.

 

Who Was This Substitute Player?

The Knoxville Sentinel profiled him after the victory.

“Sam McAlister, the fullback for the University of Tennessee football team, who starred in the game with the University of Alabama on Thanksgiving Day, is a Chattanooga boy and a nephew of Judge McAlister of the supreme court. McAlister is about 20 years old, and has been at the University of Tennessee four years. He played with the University team in several games as a substitute player. He weighs 150 pounds and is tall.”

 

McAlister (his name is spelled variously with one “l” and two and as McAllester in his obituary) was also on the basketball team and sang in the Glee Club. He graduated in 1905 and returned to Chattanooga where he coached football at Chattanooga High and private schools McCallie and Baylor. He graduated from Chattanooga College of Law in 1912, working as an attorney in his hometown for the rest of his career. When he died in 1957 at the age of 73, his obituary was featured on the front page of the Chattanooga Daily Times with the headline “Attorney Was Leader in Education and Legal Fields.” The obituary noted “he rose to the top of the legal profession and for many years had the distinction of being the leading lawyer at the Tennessee bar.” The obituary said when he was appointed to the University of Tennessee Board of Trustees in 1948 “he took more pride in that one appointment than any other public service assignment during his long career.”

He was the original VFL – Vol For Life.

 

 

 

That 1904 game wasn’t on the radio. Because there wasn’t any radio. It would be almost two decades before the first radio stations signed on. (The first Tennessee football game on radio wasn’t until 1949. Lindsay Nelson was the announcer.)

But Dobyns-Bennett football games were broadcast live on WKPT-AM starting in 1940.

The station’s first program director Bob Poole and later sports announcer Lannie Lancaster called the action. Eventually Martin Karant would take over announcing duties from Lancaster.

Which brings me to my favorite football-on-the-electric-radio story.

There was one D-B game in the early days called by WKPT’s morning announcer, the late, beloved Charlie Deming, normally host of the “Gloom Chaser” show. George DeVault, long-time general manager of WKPT, told me about that event. “An old story around here is that Charlie Deming, who knew very little about sports, was called upon to stand in and do play-by-play on a game when the regular play-by-play guy was sick. Supposedly he said, ‘There he goes. He’s to the 30-yard line, the 40, the 50, the 60, the 70, the 80…..’”